Is Your Sleep Messing with Your Hormones?

There’s no question that sleep is important for our bodies.

It’s much more than just

getting a restful night of sleep and feeling energized the next day. During sleep, our bodies also regulate our hormones - so it is even more important that we get a good night’s sleep so that our mood and metabolism can be improved.

The saying “Rest and Digest” is very accurate, meaning that when you’re sleeping and resting - your body is working on digesting and absorbing nutrients, recovering from illness or injury, and regulating your hormones. 

There are a bunch of hormones that can be influenced by sleep. These are the few that stand out:

Melatonin: This is known as our “sleepy hormone”. Melatonin regulates our sleep cycle and the release of it is prompted by darkness or nighttime. This gives our body the signal that it’s time to start winding down and get ready to sleep. When our sleep is interrupted, it can mess with our melatonin levels - leading to insomnia or other sleep disorders. 

Grehlin & Leptin: These two hormones regulate our hunger. Grehlin tells our body when it’s hungry and Leptin tells our body when it’s full. When we sleep, Leptin is released, letting us know that our body has enough nutrients right now and we don’t need to eat. Lack of sleep however increases the Grehlin in our body, increasing our appetite and ultimately leading to us reaching for high-calorie snacks and weight gain. 

Insulin: Insulin is a hormone that regulates our blood sugar. Too little sleep can lower our insulin sensitivity, leading to a rise in blood sugar and making diabetes harder to manage.

Cortisol: Cortisol is known as our “stress hormone”. When we get enough sleep, our body can regulate the cortisol levels in our body and prevent them from spiking to high levels. Having high levels of cortisol can lead to us feeling anxious, and stressed out, lead to weight gain, etc. 

So how can we help ourselves have more restful sleep?

Neurologically focused chiropractic care can help regulate our nervous system and lead to a decrease in stress, improved circulation, and pain relief. All those things will help promote more restful sleep at night and in turn help regulate the hormones that run through our bodies. 

It’s important to remember that sleep isn’t something that we should let take the backseat. Good, restful, restorative sleep is essential for our health and regular chiropractic care can be very helpful in promoting good sleep patterns!